This document contains straight answers to tough questions
about hemp and marijuana. Every effort has been made to
ensure their accuracy, and sources, if not provided, are
available by request. BE WARNED -- this text has changed
minds. The author and contributers do not take
responsibility for any change in outlook, new ideas, or
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illuminated sheet of paper on which this document is being
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blame.

Copyright (c) 1 9 9 4 by Brian S. Julin

--------------------------

The following persons have contributed to this document at
some point in it's evolution: Laura Kriho
<cohip@darkstar.cygnus.com
> (original list of questions),
Marc Anderson (fact finding), Paul L. Allen (LaTeX
formatting) ,plus some others who haven't said they want
their name put in.

This material is maintained and written by Brian S. Julin,
with help from several other individuals. It is copyrighted
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redistribute the material in any form as long as it is
unaltered in content, and no credit or money is taken for
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or ideas should be mailed to
verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu
or
c/o Brian S. Julin at UMACRC, S.A.O. Mailbox #2, Student
Union Building, UMASS, 01003

More information on the document is at the end -- wouldn't
want to bore you... So without further ado:

For our purposes, hemp is the plant called `cannabis
sativa.' There are other plants that are called hemp, but
cannabis hemp is the most useful of these plants. In fact,
`cannabis sativa' means `useful (sativa) hemp (cannabis)'.

`Hemp' is any durable plant that has been used since
pre-history for many purposes. Fiber is the most well known
product, and the word `hemp' can mean the rope or twine
which is made from the hemp plant, as well as just the stalk
of the plant which produced it.

1b) What is cannabis?

Cannabis is the most durable of the hemp plants, and it
produces the toughest cloth, called `canvass.' (Canvass was
widely used as sails in the early shipping industry, as it
was the only cloth which would not rot on contact with sea
spray.) The cannabis plant also produces three other very
important products which the other hemp plants do not (in
usable form, that is): seed, pulp, and medicine.

The pulp is used as fuel, and to make paper. The seed is
suitable for both human and animal foods. The oil from the
seed can be used in as a base for paints and varnishes. The
medicine is a tincture or admixture of the sticky resin in
the blossoms and leaves of the hemp plant, and is used for a
variety of purposes.

1c) Where did the word `marijuana' come from?

The word `marijuana' is a Mexican slang term which became
popular in the late 1930's in America, during a series of
media and government programs which we now refer to as the
`Reefer Madness Movement.' It refers specifically to the
medicine part of cannabis, which Mexican soldiers used to
smoke.

Today in the U.S., hemp (meaning the roots, stalk, and stems
of the cannabis plant) is legal to possess. No one can
arrest you for wearing a hemp shirt, or using hemp paper.
Marijuana (The flowers, buds, or leaves of the cannabis
plant) is not legal to possess, and there are stiff fines
and possible jail terms for having any marijuana in your
possession. The seeds are legal to possess and eat, but
only if they are sterilized (will not grow to maturity.)

Since it is not possible to grow the hemp plant without
being in possession of marijuana, the United States does not
produce any industrial hemp products, and must import them
or, more often, substitute others. (There is a way to grow
hemp legally, but it involves filing an application with the
Drug Enforcement Administration and the DEA very rarely ever
gives its permission.) This does not seem to have stopped
people from producing and using marijuana, though. In many
of the United States, marijuana is the number one cash crop,
mostly because it fetches a very high price on the black
market.

2a) How can hemp be used as a food?

Hemp seed is a highly nutritious source of protein and
essential fatty oils. Many populations have grown hemp for
its seed -- most of them eat it as `gruel' which is a lot
like oatmeal. The leaves can be used as roughage, but not
without slight psycho-active side-effects. Hemp seeds do
not contain any marijuana and they do not get you `high.'

Hemp seed protein closely resembles protein as it is found
in the human blood. It is fantastically easy to digest, and
many patients who have trouble digesting food are given hemp
seed by their doctors. Hemp seed was once called `edestine'
and was used by scientists as the model for vegetable
protein.

Hemp seed oil provides the human body with essential fatty
acids. Hemp seed is the only seed which contains these oils
with almost no saturated fat. As a supplement to the diet,
these oils can reduce the risk of heart disease. It is
because of these oils that birds will live much longer if
they eat hemp seed.

With hemp seed, a vegan or vegetarian can survive and eat
virtually no saturated fats. One handful of hemp seed per
day will supply adequate protein and essential oils for an
adult.

2b) What are the benefits of hemp compared to other
food crops?

Hemp requires little fertilizer, and grows well almost
everywhere. It also resists pests, so it uses little
pesticides. Hemp puts down deep roots, which is good for
the soil, and when the leaves drop off the hemp plant,
minerals and nitrogen are returned to the soil. Hemp has
been grown on the same soil for twenty years in a row
without any noticeable depletion of the soil.

Using less fertilizer and agricultural chemicals is good for
two reasons. First, it costs less and requires less effort.
Second, many agricultural chemicals are dangerous and
contaminate the environment -- the less we have to use, the
better.

2c) How about soy?
Is hemp competitive as a world source of protein?

Hemp does not produce quite as much protein as soy, but
hemp seed protein is of a higher quality than soy.
Agricultural considerations may make hemp the food crop of
the future. In addition to the fact that hemp is an easy
crop to grow, it also resists UV-B light, which is a kind of
sunlight blocked by the ozone layer. Soy beans do not take
UV-B light very well. If the ozone layer were to deplete by
16%, which by some estimates is very possible, soy
production would fall by 25-30%.

We may have to grow hemp or starve -- and it won't be the
first time that this has happened. Hemp has been used to
`bail out' many populations in time of famine.
Unfortunately, because of various political factors,
starving people in today's underdeveloped countries are not
taking advantage of this crop. In some places, this is
because government officials would call it `marijuana' and
pull up the crop. In other countries, it is because the
farmers are busy growing coca and poppies to produce cocaine
and heroin for the local Drug Lord. This is truly a sad
state of affairs. Hopefully someday the Peace Corps will be
able to teach modern hemp seed farming techniques and end
the world's protein shortage.

3a) How can hemp be used for cloth?

The stalk of the hemp plant has two parts, called the
bast and the hurd. The fiber (bast) of the hemp plant can
be woven into almost any kind of cloth. It is very durable.
In fact, the first Levi's blue jeans were made out of hemp
for just this reason. Compared to all the other natural
fibers available, hemp is more suitable for a large number
of applications.

Here is how hemp is harvested for fiber: A field of closely
spaced hemp is allowed to grow until the leaves fall off.
The hemp is then cut down and it lies in the field for some
time washed by the rain. It is turned over once to expose
both sides of the stalk evenly. During this time, the hurd
softens up and many minerals are returned to the soil. This
is called `retting,' and after this step is complete, the
stalks are brought to a machine which separates the bast and
the hurd. We are lucky to have machines today -- men used
to do this last part by hand with hours of back-breaking
labor.

3b) Why is it better than cotton?

The cloth that hemp makes may be a little less soft than
cotton, (though there are also special kinds of hemp, or
ways to grow or treat hemp, that can produce a soft cloth)
but it is much stronger and longer lasting. (It does not
stretch out.) Environmentally, hemp is a better crop to
grow than cotton, especially the way cotton is grown
nowadays. In the United States, the cotton crop uses half
of the total pesticides. (Yes, you heard right, one half of
the pesticides used in the entire U.S. are used on cotton.)
Cotton is a soil damaging crop and needs a lot of
fertilizer.

4a) How can hemp be used to make paper?

Both the fiber (bast) and pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant
can be used to make paper. Fiber paper was the first kind
of paper, and the first batch was made out of hemp in
ancient China. Fiber paper is thin, tough, brittle, and a
bit rough. Pulp paper is not as strong as fiber paper, but
it is easier to make, softer, thicker, and preferable for
most everyday purposes. The paper we use most today is a
`chemical pulp' paper made from trees. Hemp pulp paper can
be made without chemicals from the hemp hurd. Most hemp
paper made today uses the entire hemp stalk, bast and hurd.
High-strength fiber paper can be made from the hemp baste,
also without chemicals.

The problem with today's paper is that so many chemicals are
used to make it. High strength acids are needed to make
quality (smooth, strong, and white) paper out of trees.
These acids produce chemicals which are very dangerous to
the environment. Paper companies do their best to clean
these chemicals up (we hope.) Hemp offers us an opportunity
to make affordable and environmentally safe paper for all of
our needs, since it does not need much chemical treatment.
It is up to consumers, though, to make the right choice --
these dangerous chemicals can also be used on hemp to make a
slightly more attractive product. Instead of buying the
whiter, brighter role of toilet paper, we will need to think
about what we are doing to the planet.

Because of the chemicals in today's paper, it will turn
yellow and fall apart as acids eat away at the pulp. This
takes several decades, but because of this publishers,
libraries and archives have to order specially processed
acid free paper, which is much more expensive, in order to
keep records. Paper made naturally from hemp is acid free
and will last for centuries.

4b) Why can't we just keep using trees?

The chemicals used to make wood chemical pulp paper today
could cause us a lot of trouble tomorrow. Environmentalists
have long been concerned about the effects of dioxin and
other compounds on wildlife and even people. Beyond the
chemical pollution, there are agricultural reasons why we
should use cannabis hemp instead. When trees are harvested,
minerals are taken with them. Hemp is much less damaging to
the land where it is grown because it leaves these minerals
behind.

A simpler answer to the above question is:

Because we are running out! It was once said that a
squirrel could climb from New England to the banks of the
Mississippi River without touching the ground once. The
European settler's appetite for firewood and farmland put an
end to this. When the first wood paper became a huge
industry, the United States Department of Agriculture began
to worry about the `tree supply.' That is why they went in
search of plant pulp to replace wood. Today some
`conservatives' argue that there are more forests now than
there ever were. This is neither true, realistic nor
conservative: these statistics do not reflect the real
world. Once trees have been removed from a plot of land, it
takes many decades before biological diversity and natural
cycles return to the forest, and commercial tree farms
simply do not count as forest -- they are farm land.

As just mentioned, many plant fibers were investigated by
the USDA -- some, like kenaf, were even better suited than
cannabis hemp for making some qualities of paper, but hemp
had one huge advantage: robust vitality. Hemp generates
immense amounts of plant matter in a three month growing
season. When it came down to producing the deluge of paper
used by Americans, only hemp could compete with trees. In
fact, according to the 1916 calculations of the USDA, one
acre of hemp would replace an entire four acres of forest.
And, at the same time, this acre would be producing textiles
and rope.

Today, only 4% of America's old-growth forest remains
standing -- and there is talk about building roads into that
for logging purposes! Will our policy makers realize in
time how easy it would be to save them?

5a) How can hemp be used as a fuel?

The pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or
processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline.
The process for doing this is called destructive
distillation, or `pyrolysis.' Fuels made out of plants like
this are called `biomass' fuels. This charcoal may be
burned in today's coal-powered electric generators.
Methanol makes a good automobile fuel, in fact it is used in
professional automobile races. It may someday replace
gasoline.

Hemp may also be used to produce ethanol (grain alcohol.)
The United States government has developed a way to make
this automobile fuel additive from cellulosic biomass. Hemp
is an excellent source of high quality cellulosic biomass.
One other way to use hemp as fuel is to use the oil from the
hemp seed -- some diesel engines can run on pure pressed
hemp seed oil. However, the oil is more useful for other
purposes, even if we could produce and press enough hemp
seed to power many millions of cars.

5b) Why is it better than petroleum?

Biomass fuels are clean and virtually free from metals
and sulfur, so they do not cause nearly as much air
pollution as fossil fuels. Even more importantly, burning
biomass fuels does not increase the total amount of carbon
dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. When petroleum products
are burned, carbon that has been stored underground for
millions of years is added to the air; this may contribute
to global warming through the `Greenhouse Effect', (a
popular theory which says that certain gases will act like a
wool blanket over the entire Earth, preventing heat from
escaping into space.) In order to make biomass fuels, this
carbon dioxide has to be taken out of the air to begin with
-- when they are burned it is just being put back where it
started.

Another advantage over fossil fuels is that biomass fuels
can be made right here in the United States, instead of
buying them from other countries. Instead of paying oil
drillers, super-tanker captains, and soldiers to get our
fuel to us, we could pay local farmers and delivery drivers
instead. Of course, it is possible to chop down trees and
use them as biomass. This would not be as beneficial to the
environment as using hemp, especially since trees that are
cut down for burning are `whole tree harvested.' This means
the entire tree is ripped up and burned, not just the wood.
Since most of the minerals which trees use are in the
leaves, this practice could ruin the soil where the trees
are grown. In several places in the United States, power
companies are starting to do this -- burning the trees in
order to produce electricity, because that is cheaper than
using coal. They should be using hemp, like researchers in
Australia started doing a few years ago. (Besides, hemp
provides a higher quality and quantity of biomass than trees
do.)

6a) How can hemp be used as a medicine?

Marijuana has thousands of possible uses in medicine.
Marijuana (actually cannabis extract) was available as a
medicine legally in this country until 1937, and was sold as
a nerve tonic -- but mankind has been using cannabis
medicines much longer than that. Marijuana appears in
almost every known book of medicine written by ancient
scholars and wise men. It is usually ranked among the top
medicines, called `panaceas', a word which means `cure-all'.
The list of diseases which cannabis can be used for
includes: multiple sclerosis, cancer treatment, AIDS (and
AIDS treatment), glaucoma, depression, epilepsy, migraine
headaches, asthma, pruritis, sclerodoma, severe pain, and
dystonia. This list does not even consider the other
medicines which can be made out of marijuana -- these are
just some of the illnesses for which people smoke or eat
whole marijuana today.

There are over 60 chemicals in marijuana which may have
medical uses. It is relatively easy to extract these into
food or beverage, or into some sort of lotion, using butter,
fat, oil, or alcohol. One chemical, cannabinol, may be
useful to help people who cannot sleep. Another is taken
from premature buds and is called cannabidiolic acid. It is
a powerful disinfectant. Marijuana dissolved in rubbing
alcohol helps people with the skin disease herpes control
their sores, and a salve like this was one of the earliest
medical uses for cannabis. The leaves were once used in
bandages and a relaxing non-psychoactive herbal tea can be
made from small cannabis stems.

The most well known use of marijuana today is to control
nausea and vomiting. One of the most important things when
treating cancer with chemotherapy or when treating AIDS with
AZT or Foscavir, being able to eat well, makes the
difference between life or death. Patients have found
marijuana to be extremely effective in fighting nausea; in
fact so many patients use it for this purpose even though it
is illegal that they have formed `buyers clubs' to help them
find a steady supply. In California, some city governments
have decided to look the other way and allow these clubs to
operate openly.

Marijuana is also useful for fighting two other very serious
and wide-spread disabilities. Glaucoma is the second
leading cause of blindness, caused by uncontrollable eye
pressure. Marijuana can control the eye pressure and keep
glaucoma from causing blindness. Multiple Sclerosis is a
disease where the body's immune system attacks nerve cells.
Spasms and many other problems result from this. Marijuana
not only helps stop these spasms, but it may also keep
multiple sclerosis from getting worse.

6b) What's wrong with all the prescription drugs
we have?

They cost money and are hard to make. In many cases,
they do not work as well, either. Some prescription drugs
which marijuana can replace have very bad, even downright
dangerous, side-effects. Cannabis medicines are cheap,
safe, and easy to make.

Many people think that the drug dronabinol should be used
instead of marijuana. Dronabinol is an exact imitation of
one of the chemicals found in marijuana, and it may actually
work on a lot of the above diseases, but there are some big
problems with dronabinol, and most patients who have used
both dronabinol and marijuana say that marijuana works
better.

The first problem with Dronabinol is that it is even harder
to get than marijuana. Many doctors do not like to
prescribe dronabinol, and many drug stores do not want to
supply it, because a lot of paperwork has to be filed with
the Drug Enforcement Administration. Secondly, dronabinol
comes in pills which are virtually useless to anyone who is
throwing up, and it is hard to take just the right amount of
dronabinol since it cannot be smoked. Finally, because
dronabinol is only one of the many chemicals in cannabis, it
just does not work for some diseases. Many patients do not
like the effects of dronabinol because it does not contain
some of the more calming chemicals which are present in
marijuana.

7) What other uses for hemp are there?

One of the newest uses of hemp is in construction
materials. Hemp can be used in the manufacture of `press
board' or `composite board.' This involves gluing fibrous
hemp stalks together under pressure to produce a board which
is many times more elastic and durable than hardwood.
Because hemp produces a long, tough fiber it is the perfect
source for press-board. Another interesting application of
hemp in industry is making plastic. Many plastics can be
made from the high-cellulose hemp hurd. Hemp seed oil has a
multitude of uses in products such as varnishes and
lubricants.

Using hemp to build is by no means a new idea. French
archeologists have discovered bridges built with a process
that mineralizes hemp stalks into a long-lasting cement.
The process involves no synthetic chemicals and produces a
material which works as a filler in building construction.
Called Isochanvre, it is gaining popularity in France.
Isochanvre can be used as drywall, insulates against heat
and noise, and is very long lasting.

`Bio-plastics' are not a new idea, either -- way back in the
1930's Henry Ford had already made a whole car body out of
them -- but the processes for making them do need more
research and development. Bio-plastics can be made without
much pollution. Unfortunately, companies are not likely to
explore bio-plastics if they have to either import the raw
materials or break the law. (Not to mention compete with
the already established petrochemical products.)

-----------------------P A R T T W O
-----------------------

WELL WHY AREN'T WE USING HEMP, THEN?

1) How and why was hemp made illegal?

Tough question! In order to explain why hemp, the most
useful plant known to mankind, became illegal, we have to
understand the reasons why marijuana, the drug, became
illegal. In fact, it helps to go way back to the beginning
of the century and talk about two other drugs, opium (the
grandfather of heroin) and cocaine.

Opium, a very addictive drug (but relatively harmless by
today's standards) was once widely used by the Chinese. The
reasons for this are a whole other story, but suffice to say
that when Chinese started to immigrate to the United States,
they brought opium with them. Chinese workers used opium to
induce a trance-like state which helped make boring,
repetitive tasks more interesting. It also numbs the mind
to pain and exhaustion. By using opium, the Chinese were
able to pull very long hours in the sweat shops of the
Industrial Revolution. During this period of time, there
was no such thing as fair wages, and the only way a worker
could make a living was to produce as much as humanly
possible.

Since they were such good workers, the Chinese held a lot of
jobs in the highly competitive industrial work-place. Even
before the Great Depression, when millions of jobs
disappeared overnight, the White Americans began to resent
this, and Chinese became hated among the White working
class. Even more than today, White Americans had a very big
political advantage over the Chinese -- they spoke English
and had a few relatives in the government, so it was easy
for them to come up with a plan to force Chinese immigrants
to leave the country (or at least keep them from inviting
all their relatives to come and live in America.) This plan
depended on stirring up racist feelings, and one of the
easiest things to focus these feelings on was the foreign
and mysterious practice of using opium.

We can see this pattern again with cocaine, except with
cocaine it was Black Americans who were the target. Cocaine
probably was not especially useful in the work-place, but
the strategy against Chinese immigrants (picking on their
drug of choice) had been so successful that it was used
again. In the case of Blacks, though, the racist feelings
ran deeper, and the main thrust of the propaganda campaign
was to control the Black community and keep Blacks from
becoming successful. Articles appeared in newspapers which
blamed cocaine for violent crime by Blacks. Black Americans
were painted as savage, uncontrollable beasts when under the
influence of cocaine -- it was said to make a single Black
man as strong as four or five police officers. (sound
familiar?) By capitalizing on racist sentiments, a powerful
political lobby banned opium and then cocaine.

Marijuana was next. It was well known that the Mexican
soldiers who fought America during the war with Spain smoked
marijuana. Poncho Villa, A Mexican general, was considered
a nemesis for the behavior of his troops, who were known to
be especially rowdy. They were also known to be heavy
marijuana smokers, as the original lyrics to the song `la
cucaracha' show. (The song was originally about a Mexican
soldier who refused to march until he was provided with some
marijuana.)

After the war had ended and Mexicans had begun to immigrate
into the South Eastern United States, there were relatively
few race problems. There were plenty of jobs in agriculture
and industry and Mexicans were willing to work cheap. Once
the depression hit and jobs became scarce, however, Mexicans
suddenly became a public nuisance. It was said by
politicians (who were trying to please the White working
class) that Mexicans were responsible for a violent crime
wave. Police statistics showed nothing of the sort -- in
fact Mexicans were involved in less crime than Whites.
Marijuana, of course, got the blame for this phony outbreak
of crime and health problems, and so many of these states
made laws against using cannabis. (In the Northern states,
marijuana was also associated with Black jazz musicians.)

Here is where things start to get complicated. Put aside,
for a moment, all the above, because there are a few other
things involved in this twisted tale. At the beginning of
the Great Depression, there was a very popular movement
called Prohibition, which made alcohol illegal. This was
motivated mainly by a Puritan religious ethic left over from
the first European settlers. Today we have movies and
television shows such as the ``Untouchables'' which tell us
what it was like to live during this period. Since it is
perhaps the world's most popular drug, alcohol prohibition
spawned a huge `black market' where illegal alcohol was
smuggled and traded at extremely high prices. Crime got
out-of-hand as criminals fought with each other over who
could sell alcohol where. Organized crime became an
American institution, and hard liquor, which was easy to
smuggle, took the place of beer and wine.

In order to combat the crime wave, a large police force was
formed. The number of police grew rapidly until the end of
Prohibition when the government decided that the best way to
deal with the situation was to just give up and allow people
to use alcohol legally. Under Prohibition the American
government had essentially (and unwittingly) provided the
military back-up for the take-over of the alcohol business
by armed thugs. Even today, the Mob still controls liquor
sales in many areas. After Prohibition the United States
was left with nothing to show but a decade of political
turmoil -- and a lot of unemployed police officers.

During Prohibition, being a police officer was a very nice
thing -- you got a relatively decent salary, respect,
partial immunity to the law, and the opportunity to take
bribes (if you were that sort of person.) Many of these
officers were not about to let this life-style slip away.
Incidentally, it was about this time when the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was reformed, and a man
named Harry J. Anslinger was appointed as its head.
(Anslinger was appointed by his uncle-in-law, Andrew Mellon,
who was the Secretary of the United States Treasury.)
Anslinger campaigned tirelessly for funding in order to hire
a large force of narcotics officers. After retiring,
Anslinger once mused that the FBNDD was a place where young
men were given a license to steal and rape.

The FBNDD is the organization which preceded what we now
call the DEA, and was responsible for enforcing the new
Federal drug laws against heroin, opium, and cocaine. One
of Anslinger's biggest concerns as head of the FBNDD was
getting uniform drug laws passed in all States and the
Federal legislature. (Anslinger also had a personal dislike
of jazz music and the Black musicians who made it. He hated
them so much that he spent years tracking each of them and
dreamed of arresting them all in one huge, cross-country
sweep.) Anslinger frequented parent's and teacher's
meetings giving scary speeches about the dangers of
marijuana, and this period of time became known as Reefer
Madness. (The name comes from the title of a silly movie
produced by a public health group.)

2) OK, so what the heck does all this other stuff
have to do
with hemp?

To make a long story short, during the first decades of this
century, opium was made illegal to kick out the Chinese
immigrants who had flooded the work-force. Cocaine was made
illegal to repress and control the Black community.
And, marijuana was made illegal in order to control Mexicans
in the Southeast (and Blacks.) All these laws were based
mainly on emotional racism, without much else to back them
up -- you can easily tell this by reading the hearings held
in state legislatures. Also at this time, the end of
Prohibition left us with a large force of unemployed police
officers, who looked for work enforcing the new drug laws.
Consequently, these same police officers needed to convince
the country that their jobs were important. They did so by
scaring parents about the dangers of drugs. All this set
the stage for a law passed in the Federal legislature which
put a prohibitive tax on marijuana. This is what killed the
hemp industry in 1937, since it made business in hemp
impossible.

Before the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the state of Kentucky was
the center of a relatively large American hemp industry
which produced cloth and tow (rope for use in shipping.)
The industry would have been larger, but hemp had one major
disadvantage: processing it required a lot of work. Men had
to `brake' hemp stalks in order to separate the fiber from
the woody core. This was done on a small machine called a
hand-brake, and it was a job fit for Hercules. It was not
until the 1930's that machines to do this became widely
available.

Today we use paper made by a process called `chemical
pulping'. Before this, trees were processed by `mechanical
pulping' instead, which was much more expensive. At about
the same time as machines to brake hemp appeared, the idea
of using hemp hurds for making paper and plastic was
proposed. Hemp hurds were normally considered to be a
worthless waste product that was thrown away after it was
stripped of fiber. New research showed that these hurds
could be used instead of wood in mechanical pulping, and
that this would drastically reduce the cost of making paper.
Popular Mechanics Magazine predicted that hemp would rise to
become the number one crop in America. In fact, the 1937
Marijuana Tax Act was so unexpected that Popular Mechanics
had already gone to press with a cover story about hemp,
published in 1938 just two months after the Tax Act took
effect.

3) Now wait, just hold on. You expect me to believe
that
they wouldn't have thought to pass a better law, one that
banned marijuana and allowed commercial hemp, instead of
throwing the baby out with the bath water?

There's more. `Chemical pulping' paper was invented at
about this time by Dupont Chemicals, as part of a
multi-million dollar deal with a timber holding company and
newspaper chain owned by William Randolph Hearst. This deal
would provide the Hearst with a source of very cheap paper,
and he would go on to be known as the tycoon of `yellow
journalism' (so named because the new paper would turn
yellow very quickly as it got older.) Hearst knew that he
could drive other papers out of competition with this new
advantage. Hemp paper threatened to ruin this whole plan.
It had to be stopped, and the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 was
the way they did it. As a drug law, the Tax Act really was
not a very big step -- it did not really accomplish much at
all and many historians have caught themselves wondering why
the bill was even written. Big business interests took
advantage of the political climate of racism and anti-drug
rhetoric to close the free market to hemp products, and
_that_, my friend, is how hemp became illegal.

(Whew!)

For the 1930's, this business venture was one very large
transaction; it included other timber companies and a few
railroads. Dupont's entire deal was backed by a banker
named Andrew Mellon. Don't look up! That's the same Andrew
Mellon who appointed his nephew-in-law Harry Anslinger to
head up the FBNDD in 1931. The Marijuana Tax Act was passed
in a very unorthodox way, and nobody who would have objected
was informed about the bill. The American Medical
Association found out about the bill only two days before
the hearings, and sent a representative to object to the
banning of cannabis medicines. A hemp bird seed salesman
also showed up and complained. However, the bill was
passed, partially due to the testimony of Harry J.
Anslinger.

Not that Americans would have protested against this bill,
even if they had known it existed most Americans did not
know that cannabis hemp and marijuana is the same thing.
The separate word `marijuana' was one of the reasons for
this. Nobody would associate the evil weed from Mexico with
the stuff they tied their shoes with. Also, this was the
time when synthetic fabrics were the latest fad -- nobody
was interested in natural fibers any more. To top this all
off the word `hemp' was often wrongly used to refer to other
natural fabrics, specifically jute.

The ignorance of hemp continues today, but it is even more
scary. During the 1970's (Reefer Madness II) all mention of
the word `hemp' was removed from high school text books here
in the United States. So much for free speech! When Jack
Herer, the world's most beloved hemp activist, asked a
curator at the Smithsonian Museum why this word had been
removed from all their exhibits, the answer he got was
astounding: ``Children do not need to know about hemp
anymore. It confuses them.'' Jack Herer went on to uncover
a film made by the United States government, a film which
the government did not want to admit existed. The film
``Hemp For Victory'' details how the United States
government bypassed the Tax Act during World War II, when
they needed hemp for the War Effort, and ran a large
hemp-growing project in Kentucky and California. (Bravo,
Jack!)

4) Is there a lesson to be learned from all this?

Several. The first is that hate does not pay. It is
ironic that the racism of the American people would end up
hurting them this way -- a sort of divine justice if you
will. Because Americans were blinded by fear, hatred, and
intolerance of other races, they allowed a prosperous future
to slip between their fingers. Another thing this whole
history tells us is that Americans need to take Democracy
more seriously. If they had devoted more of their time to
informing themselves about the world around them, they would
have known what the real issues were. Instead they read the
tabloids -- look where that has gotten us. Finally, now
that we have put marijuana prohibition into historical
context, we can see clearly that it had nothing to do with
public safety, or national security, or what have you. By
all rights, marijuana should not have been made illegal in
the first place. If today prohibition still has no rational
basis to stand on, then let us repeal it.

One point which bears emphasizing is this: the laws which
are passed in this country may not mean what they say on
paper. Historically the United States has a long record of
passing laws with ulterior motives. Even when there is no
ulterior motive, though, passing laws which are not specific
enough leads to abuse. Most of our tough drug laws are like
this -- enacted to fight drug kingpins, but enforced against
casual drug users and small-time drug dealers. In fact,
most of these laws never even get used against a real drug
kingpin, and the first people prosecuted under the statutes
are not what the legislators had in mind. If this upsets
you, you should pay more attention to what goes on in your
legislature.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The next question would normally be ``Why is it _still_ not
legal,'' but since we have uncovered an understanding of the
history, it is time to take a little detour. Politicians
love to tell us that marijuana must remain illegal for our
own good. In the next section we will examine some of the
so-called facts about marijuana so that you can decide for
yourselves whether you agree or not. Is marijuana
prohibition there to protect the people, or is it just the
result of decades of refusal to admit our
mistakes?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DOES IT? DOESN'T IT? IS IT TRUE THAT?

1) Doesn't marijuana stay in your fat cells and
keep you
high for months?

No. The part of marijuana that gets you high is called
`Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.' Most people just call this
THC, but this is confusing: your body will change
Delta-9-THC into more inert molecules known as
`metabolites,' which don't get you high. Unfortunately,
these chemicals also have the word `tetrahydrocannabinol' in
them and they are also called THC -- so many people think
that the metabolites get you high. Anti-drug pamphlets say
that THC gets stored in your fat cells and then leaks out
later like one of those `time release capsules' advertised
on television. They say it can keep you high all day or
even longer. This is not true, marijuana only keeps you
high for a few hours, and it is not right to think that a
person who fails a drug test is always high on drugs,
either.

Two of these metabolites are called
`11-hydroxy-tetrahydrocannabinol' and
`11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol' but we will
call them 11-OH-THC and 11-nor instead. These are the
chemicals which stay in your fatty cells. There is almost
no Delta-9-THC left over a few hours after smoking
marijuana, and scientific studies which measure the effects
of marijuana agree with this fact.

2) But ... isn't today's marijuana much more potent
than it
was in the Sixties?
(Or, more often ... Marijuana is 10 times more powerful than
it was in the Sixties!)

GOOD! Actually, this is not true, but if it were, it
would mean that marijuana is safer to smoke today than it
was in the Sixties. (More potent cannabis means less
smoking means less lung damage.) People who use this
statistic just plain do not know what they are talking
about. Sometimes they will even claim that marijuana is now
twenty to thirty times stronger, which is physically
impossible because it would have to be *over* 100%
Delta-9-THC. The truth is, marijuana has not really changed
potency all that much, if at all, in the last several
hundred years. Growing potent cannabis is an ancient art
which has not improved in centuries, despite all our modern
technology. Before marijuana was even made illegal, drug
stores sold tinctures of cannabis which were over 40% THC.

Even so, the point is moot because marijuana smokers engage
in something called `auto-titration.' This basically means
smoking until they are satisfied and then stopping, so it
does not really matter if the marijuana is more potent
because they will smoke less of it. Marijuana is not like
pre-moistened towelettes or snow-cones. There is nothing
forcing marijuana smokers to smoke an entire joint.

Experienced marijuana users are accustomed to smoking
marijuana from many different suppliers, and they know that
if they smoke a whole joint of very potent bud they will get
`TOO STONED'. Since being `too stoned' is a rather
unpleasant experience, smokers quickly learn to take their
time and `test the waters' when they do not know how strong
their marijuana is.

3a) Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?

The short answer: No.

The long answer: The reason why you ask this is because you
probably heard or read somewhere that marijuana damages
brain cells, or makes you stupid. These claims are untrue.

The first one -- marijuana kills brain cells -- is based on
research done during the second Reefer Madness Movement. A
study attempted to show that marijuana smoking damaged brain
structures in monkeys. However, the study was poorly
performed and it was severely criticized by a medical review
board. Studies done afterwards failed to show any brain
damage, in fact a very recent study on Rhesus monkeys used
technology so sensitive that scientists could actually see
the effect of learning on brain cells, and it found no
damage.

But this was Reefer Madness II, and the prohibitionists were
looking around for anything they could find to keep the
marijuana legalization movement in check, so this study was
widely used in anti-marijuana propaganda. It was recanted
later.

(To this day, the radical anti-drug groups, like P.R.I.D.E.
and Dr. Gabriel Nahas, still use it -- In fact, America's
most popular drug education program, Drug Abuse Resistance
Education, claims that marijuana ``can impair memory
perception & judgement by destroying brain cells.'' When
police and teachers read this and believe it, our job gets
really tough, since it takes a long time to explain to
children how Ms. Jones and Officer Bob were wrong.)

The truth is, no study has ever demonstrated cellular
damage, stupidity, mental impairment, or insanity brought on
specifically by marijuana use -- even heavy marijuana use.
This is not to say that it cannot be abused, however.

3b) If it doesn't kill brain cells, how does it
get you `high'?

Killing brain cells is not a pre-requisite for getting
`high.' Marijuana contains a chemical which substitutes for
a natural brain chemical, with a few differences. This
chemical touches special `buttons' on brain cells called
`receptors.' Essentially, marijuana `tickles' brain cells.
The legal drug alcohol also tickles brain cells, but it will
damage and kill them by producing toxins (poisons) and
sometimes mini-seizures. Also, some drugs will wear out the
buttons which they push, but marijuana does not.

4) Don't people die from smoking pot?

Nobody has ever overdosed. For any given substance,
there are bound to be some people who have allergic
reactions. With marijuana this is extremely rare, but it
could happen with anything from apples to pop-tarts. Not
one death has ever been directly linked to marijuana itself.
In contrast, many legal drugs cause hundreds to hundreds of
thousands of deaths per year, foremost among them are
alcohol, nicotine, valium, aspirin, and caffiene. The
biggest danger with marijuana is that it is illegal, and
someone may mix it with another drug like PCP.

Marijuana is so safe that it would be almost impossible to
overdose on it. Doctors determine how safe a drug is by
measuring how much it takes to kill a person (they call this
the LD50) and comparing it to the amount of the drug which
is usually taken (ED50). This makes marijuana hundreds of
times safer than alcohol, tobacco, or caffiene. According
to a DEA Judge ``marijuana is the safest therapeutically
active substance known to mankind.''

5) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory
impairment?

The effect of marijuana on memory is its most dramatic
and the easiest to notice. Many inexperienced marijuana
users find that they have very strange, sudden and
unexpected memory lapses. These usually take the form of
completely forgetting what you were talking about when you
were right in the middle of saying something important.
However, these symptoms only occur while a person is `high'.
They do not carry over or become permanent, and examinations
of extremely heavy users has not shown any memory or
thinking problems. More experienced marijuana users seem to
be able to remember about as well as they do when they are
not `high.'

Studies which have claimed to show short-term memory
impairment have not stood up to scrutiny and have not been
duplicated. Newer studies show that marijuana does not
impair simple, real-world memory processes. Marijuana does
slow reaction time slightly, and this effect has sometimes
been misconstrued as a memory problem. To put things in
perspective, one group of researchers made a control group
hold their breath, like marijuana smokers do. Marijuana
itself only produced about twice as many effects on test
scores as breath holding. Many people use marijuana to
study. Other people cannot, for some reason, use marijuana
and do anything that involves deep thought. Nobody knows
what makes the difference.

6a) Is marijuana going to make my boyfriend go
psycho?

Marijuana does not `cause' psychosis. Psychotic people
can smoke marijuana and have an episode, but there is
nothing in marijuana that actually initiates or increases
these episodes. Of course, if any mentally ill person is
given marijuana for the first time or without their
knowledge, they might get scared and `freak.' Persons who
suffer from severe psychological disorders often use
marijuana as a way of coping. Because of this, some
researchers have assumed that marijuana is the cause of
these problems, when it is actually a symptom. If you have
heard that marijuana makes people go crazy, this is probably
why.

6b) Don't users of marijuana withdraw from
society?

To some extent, yes. That's probably just because they
are afraid of being arrested, though. The same situation
exists with socially maladjusted persons as does with the
mentally ill. Emotionally troubled individuals find
marijuana to be soothing, and so they tend to use it more
than your average person. Treatment specialists see this,
and assume that the marijuana is causing the problem. This
is a mistake which hurts the patient, because their doctors
will pay less attention to their actual needs, and
concentrate on ending their drug habit. Sometimes the
cannabis is even helping them to recover. Cannabis can be
abused, and it can make these situations worse, but
psychologists should approach marijuana use with an open
mind or they risk hurting their patient.

Marijuana itself does not make normal people anti-social.
In fact, a large psychological study of teenagers found that
casual marijuana users are more well adjusted than `drug
free' people. This would be very amusing, but it is a
serious problem. There are children who have emotional
problems which keep them from participating in healthy,
explorative behavior. They need psychological help but
instead they are skipped over. Marijuana users who do not
need help are having treatment forced on them, and in the
mean-time marijuana takes the blame for the personality
characteristics and problems of the people who like to use
it improperly.

7) Is it true that marijuana makes you lazy and
unmotivated?

Not if you are a responsible adult, it doesn't. Ask the
U.S. Army. They did a study and showed no effect. If this
were true, why would many Eastern cultures, and Jamaicans,
use marijuana to help them work harder? `Amotivational
syndrome' started as a media myth based on the racial
stereotype of a lazy Mexican borracho. The prohibitionists
claimed that marijuana made people worthless and sluggish.
Since then, however, it has been scientifically researched,
and a symptom resembling amotivational syndrome has actually
been found. However, it only occurs in adolescent teenagers
-- adults are not affected.

When a person reaches adolescence, their willingness to work
usually increases, but this does not happen for teenagers
using marijuana regularly -- even just on the weekends. The
actual studies involved monkeys, not humans, and the results
are not verified, but older studies which tried to show
`amotivational syndrome' usually only suceeded when they
studied adolescents. Adults are not effected.

The symptoms are not permanent, and motivation returns to
normal levels several months after marijuana smoking stops.
However, a small number of people may be unusually sensitive
to this effect. One of the monkeys in the experiment was
severely amotivated and did not recover. Doctors will need
to study this more before they know why.

8) Isn't marijuana a gateway drug?
Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?

This is totally untrue. In fact, researchers are looking
into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit. There
are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked
marijuana for a period of their lives -- why aren't there
tens of millions of heroin users, then? In Amsterdam, both
marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was
decriminalized -- even though there was a short rise in
cannabis use right after decriminalization. Unlike
addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance. Some
people even report a reverse tolerance. That is, the longer
they have used the less marijuana they need to get `high.'
So users of marijuana do not usually get bored and `look for
something more powerful'. If anything, marijuana keeps
people from doing harder drugs.

The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or
speed is called the `gateway theory' or the `stepping stone
hypothesis.' It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug
propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something
insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls. There have
never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but
somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers
yelled about during Reefer Madness II. (Perhaps this was
because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the
increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.)

The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally
accepted by the medical community. Prohibitionists used to
point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the
hard drug users `started with marijuana.' They had it
backwards -- many hard drug users also use marijuana. There
are two reasons for this. One is that marijuana can be used
to `take the edge off' the effects of some hard drugs. The
other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology
-- there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically
because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill.

On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has
been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the
drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that
culture. By the same token this is untrue -- marijuana does
not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses
marijuana. There are many marijuana users who are not a
part of the subculture.

This brings up another example of how marijuana legalization
could actually reduce the use of illicit drugs. Even though
there is no magical `stepping stone' effect, people who
choose to buy marijuana often buy from dealers who deal in
many different illegal drugs. This means that they have
access to illegal drugs, and might decide to try them out.
In this case it is the laws which lead to hard drug use. If
marijuana were legal, the drug markets would be separated,
and less people would start using the illegal drugs. Maybe
this is why emergency room admissions for hard drugs have
gone down in the states that decriminalized marijuana during
the 70's.

9a) I don't want children (minors) to be able
to smoke marijuana.
How can I stop this?

Legalize it. They can smoke it now; it is about as easy
to get as alcohol. There would be less marijuana being sold
in schools, playgrounds, and street corners, though, if it
was sold legally through pharmacies -- because the dealers
would not be able to compete with the prices. If you are a
parent, the choice is really up to you: Do you want your
children to sneak off with their friends and use marijuana
which they bought off the street, or do you want to talk to
them calmly and explain to them why they should wait until
they are older? Your children are not going to walk up to
you and tell you that they use an illegal drug, but if it
was not such a big deal they might give you a chance to
explain your feelings. Besides, would you rather children
use speed, cocaine, and alcohol?

Consider, also, that children have a natural urge to

do
things that they aren't supposed to. It is called
curiosity. By making such a fuss over marijuana, you make
it interesting (some call it the `forbidden fruit' factor.)
This is made worse when children are lied to about drugs by
teachers and police -- they lose respect for the school and
the government. In a lot of ways, it is the hysteria about
drugs which causes the most harm. When marijuana users do
none of the horrible things they are supposed to, children
may think that other more harmful drugs are OK, too. Your
children will not respect you unless you are calm and give
good reasons for your rules. The first step is for you, the
parent, to lean the facts about drugs.

9b) Won't children be able to steal marijuana
plants that
people are growing?

Well, if you are worried about them stealing the hemp
plants from the paper-pulp farm down the road, you should
know that the commercial grades of hemp do not contain much
THC (the stuff that gets you high.) If they were to smoke
it, they would probably just get a headache. Otherwise, it
should be the responsibility of the grower to take measures
to prevent this. Most ``home-grown'' marijuana is
cultivated indoors anyway. If the children in your town
have nothing better to do than go around stealing marijuana
to smoke, your town needs to buy a library or something.

Marijuana does not turn young healthy boys into lanky,
girlish looking wimps, no. This scare tactic (call it
homo-phobic if you will) was a common device used in early
anti-drug literature. It attempts to scare boys away from
marijuana by telling them, essentially, that it will turn
them into a girl. Young men probably should not use
marijuana heavily (see the section on amotivational
syndrome), but the risks are not horrendous.

Anti-marijuana pamphlets used this claim often during Reefer
Madness II, but the studies which are cited are mostly
faulty or misinterpreted. This is not to say that marijuana
use does not affect childhood development at all, just that
the effects are not as drastic as some people would like
them to sound. In fact they are pretty much unknown.

10b) Doesn't heavy marijuana use lower the sperm
count in males?

Not by much, (if at all) and this can be a good thing.
It does not make you impotent or sterile. (If it did --
there would be no Rastafarians left!) Give those testicles
a rest, already! Marijuana is certainly _not_ birth
control, please don't let your lover tell you it is.

Many people think that marijuana enhances their sex lives.
It is not an aphrodisiac, that is, it does not make people
want to have sex. What it does do for some people is make
everything more sensual -- it makes food taste better and
feelings and emotions more vivid.

10c) I heard marijuana use by teenage girls may
impair hormone
production, menstrual cycles, and fertility. Is this true?

Also unproven and unfounded, but there is no data
available to tell either way, (and it won't be coming from
the U.S. -- current U.S. laws prohibit research on women.)
This is the female version of the boy's ``It'll turn you
into a sissy'' tactic. As far as anyone knows, it is only a
scare tactic.

11) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term
memory impairment?

Go away.

12) Isn't smoking marijuana worse for you than
smoking cigarettes?

There are many reasons why it is not. You may have heard
that ``one joint is equal to ten cigarrettes'' but this is
exagerrated and misleading. Marijuana does contain more tar
than tobacco -- but low tar cigarettes cause just as much
cancer, so what is that supposed to mean? Scientists have
shown that smoking any plant is bad for your lungs, because
it increases the number of `lesions' in your small airways.
This usually does not threaten your life, but there is a
chance it will lead to infections. Marijuana users who are
worried about this can find less harmful ways of taking
marijuana like eating or vaporizing. (Be careful --
marijuana is safe to eat -- but tobacco is not, you might
overdose!) Marijuana does not seem to cause cancer the way
tobacco does, though.

Here is a list of interesting facts about marijuana smoking
and tobacco smoking:

o Marijuana smokers generally don't chain smoke, and
so they smoke less. (Marijuana is not physically
addictive like tobacco.) The more potent marijuana
is, the less a smoker will use at a time.

o Tobacco contains nicotine, and marijuana doesn't.
Nicotine may harden the arteries and may be
responsible for much of the heart disease caused by
tobacco. New research has found that it may also
cause a lot of the cancer in tobacco smokers and
people who live or work where tobacco is smoked.
This is because it breaks down into a cancer causing
chemical called `N Nitrosamine' when it is burned
(and maybe even while it is inside the body as well.)

o Marijuana contains THC. THC is a bronchial dilator,
which means it works like a cough drop and opens up
your lungs, which aids clearance of smoke and dirt.
Nicotine does just the opposite; it makes your lungs
bunch up and makes it harder to cough anything up.

o There are benefits from marijuana (besides bronchial
dilation) that you don't get from tobacco. Mainly,
marijuana makes you relax, which improves your health
and well-being.

o Scientists do not really know what it is that causes
malignant lung cancer in tobacco. Many think it may
be a substance known as Lead 210. Of course, there
are many other theories as to what does cause cancer,
but if this is true, it is easy to see why NO CASE OF
LUNG CANCER RESULTING FROM MARIJUANA USE ALONE HAS
EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, because tobacco contains much
more of this substance than marijuana.

o Marijuana laws make it harder to use marijuana
without damaging your body. Water-pipes are illegal
in many states. Filtered cigarettes, vaporizers, and
inhalers have to be mass produced, which is hard to
arrange `underground.' People don't eat marijuana
often because you need more to get as high that way,
and it isn't cheap or easy to get (which is the
reason why some people will stoop to smoking leaves.)
This may sound funny to you -- but the more legal
marijuana gets, the safer it is.

-------------------------

It is pretty obvious to users that marijuana prohibition
laws are not ``for their own good.'' In addition to the
above, legal marijuana would be clean and free from
adulturants. Some people add other drugs to marijuana
before they sell it. Some people spray room freshener on it
or soak in in chemicals like formaldehyde! A lot of the
marijuana is grown outdoors, where it may be sprayed with
pesticides or contaminated with dangerous fungi. If the
government really cared about our health, they would form an
agency which would make sure only quality marijuana was
sold. This would be cheaper than keeping it illegal, and it
would keep people from getting hurt and going to the
emergency room.

13) Don't children born to pot-smoking mothers
suffer from
``Fetal Marijuana Syndrome?''

If a fetal cannabis syndrome exists, cases are so rare
that it cannot be demonstrated. Many mothers use marijuana
during pregnancy -- it controls the nausea called `morning
sickness' and many say it actually increases the appetite
and reduces stress. This is especially important in less
developed countries, where modern medical care is not as
easily available, but even so, the benefits of responsible
marijuana use may outweigh the risks even under modern
medicine.

Studies conducted in Jamiaca have shown that mothers who
smoke marijuana have healthier children, but this may be due
to the extra income generated by marijuana dealing and other
factors. It has been a common ploy in the War on Drugs to
claim that marijuana, and especially cocaine, causes birth
defects or behavior problems like alcohol does. This scares
caring mothers into thinking drugs are `evil.' The claims
are not based on valid scientific research -- many of them
do not even consider the life-style or living conditions of
the mothers before pointing at drugs with the blame.

Obviously, pregnant mothers should not smoke as much pot as
they possibly can. If marijuana is abused, it may hurt the
health of both mother and child. Delta-9-THC does cross the
placenta and enter the fetus. Oddly, though, the marijuana
metabolite, 11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-THC does not, and the
fetus does not break delta-9-THC down into 11-nor like the
mother's body does, so unborn children are not exposed to
11-nor. The third trimester is the time when the child is
most vulnerable. Parents should bear these facts in mind
when they make decisions about using cannabis.

14) Doesn't marijuana cause a lot of automobile
accidents?

Not really. The marijuana using public has the same or
lower rate of automobile accidents as the general public.
Studies of marijuana smoking while driving showed that it
does affect reaction time, but not nearly as much as
alcohol. Also, those who drive `stoned' have been shown to
be less foolish on the road (they demonstrate `increased
risk aversion'.) Recent studies have emphasized that
alcohol is the major problem on our highways, and that
illicit drugs do not even come close to being as dangerous.

As funny as it may seem, you may be safer driving `stoned',
as long as you aren't `totally blasted' and seeing things --
but few users are irresponsible enough to drive in this
state of mind, anyway. Still, many people have reported
making mistakes while driving because they were stoned.

There are those who think that marijuana is a major problem
on the streets, because of a newspaper article or news story
which they have seen which said a large number of people who
were killed in driving accidents tested postive for
marijuana use. For various reasons, these studies are not
reliable:

o Some studies use drug tests which can only tell
whether a person has used marijuana in the last
month.

o Some studies were done near colleges or other areas
where drinking, marijuana use, and accidents are all
very high, and they did not correct for age or
alcohol use.

o In many of the studies there were more stoned drivers
killed -- but it was not their fault, and when the
police ``culpability scores'' were factored in
marijuana was not to blame for the accidents.

15) Aren't you afraid everyone will get hooked?

Marijuana produces no withdrawal symptoms no matter how
heavy it is used. It is habit forming (psychologically
addictive), but not physically addictive. The majority of
people who quit marijuana don't even have to think twice
about it. Comparing marijuana to addictive drugs is really
quite silly.

For a drug to be physically addictive, it must be
reinforcing, produce withdrawal symptoms, and produce
tolerance. Marijuana is reinforcing, because it feels good,
but it does not do the other two things. Caffeine, nicotine
and alcohol are all physically addictive.

16a) Is urine testing for marijuana use as a
terms of
employment a good idea?
I want to make sure my business is run safely.

No! Some of your most brilliant, hard working, and
reliable employees are marijuana users. When you drug test,
you put all marijuana users in the same place as the abusers
-- the unemployment line. Drug testing is bad for business.
(Not to mention it is an invasion of privacy.) If a worker
has a drug problem, you can tell by testing how well he does
his job. Firing *all* the drug users who work for you will
hurt your business, costs money, and will get people very
mad at you -- and for what? There isn't even any hard
evidence that marijuana users have more accidents or health
problems.

Your employees will probably resent being drug tested; drug
testing allows an employer to govern the actions of an
employee in his off time -- even when these actions do not
effect his job performance. (As told above, marijuana drug
tests do not test whether a person is `high'. They test
whether or not they have used in the last few weeks.)
Asking employees to urinate in a plastic cup every month is
not a good way to make them feel like part of the business,
or make friends, either. There is growing concern about
drug tests, sometimes because they misfire and accuse the
wrong person, but mostly because they might be used to find
out other confidential information about an employee. Legal
professionals are beginning to question whether they are
even constitutional.

16b) Isn't all this worth the trouble, though,
in order to
reduce accident risks and health care costs?

Everyone knows that marijuana users are bad employees,
right? Wrong -- or at least someone forgot to tell the
millions of hard working marijuana smokers that. Drug
testing companies will hand you piles of statistics which
they say prove marijuana use costs you money. The truth is
there are just as many studies which show that marijuana
users are more successful, use less health care, and produce
more than non-users. Before you buy into workplace drug
testing, make sure you get the other side of the story.

In the 1980's, the Bush administration went to great lengths
to promote drug testing. In fact, George Bush estimated the
cost of drug use at over 60 billion dollars a year, based on
a study which supposedly showed that persons who had used
marijuana at some time during their life were less
successful. The very same study could be used to show that
current, heavy users of marijuana and other illegal drugs
were actually more successful. Something is a bit fishy
here, and when you add to that the fact that several former
heads of the DEA and former Drug Czars now own or work in
the urinalysis industry, this whole scene begins to smell a
bit funny.

17) Wouldn't it be best to just lock the users
all up?

How do you plan to pay for that? Already, well over five
percent of the people in this country (U.S) are in custody
(including probation, parole, bail, etc.) Murderers and
rapists are being let out of our penatentiaries right now to
make room for a few more `deadheads' -- there are about
2,500 Grateful Dead fans in our federal prisons.
Imprisoning one person for one year costs about $20,000.
The United States leads the world in imprisonment -- at any
one time, 425 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars.
In the Federal Prison System, one fifth of the prisoners are
drug offenders who have done nothing violent. State laws
are usually less strict, but state mandatory minumum
sentences for drugs are getting more popular.

Our prisons and our courtrooms are so crowded that the
American Bar Association's annual report on the state of the
Justice System is basically one long plea for an end to drug
laws that imprison users. Even the Clinton Administration
recognizes that locking people up is not the solution. This
is especially true for the people who actually have drug
abuse problems -- they need treatment, not mistreatment.
The Drug War put mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug
crimes on the lawbooks. If we do not take those laws (at
least) back off, we will be in sorry shape come the end of
the century. A retroactive policy of marijuana legalization
or decriminalization would go a long way in helping to solve
this crisis.

Also consider this -- Once a person gets put in jail, he
becomes angry with the world. He will probably be
victimized while he is there, and most likely will learn
criminal behaviors from hard-core violent offenders. There
is also a very good chance that he will have caught AIDS or
tuberculosis by the time he gets let back out. By locking
up drug users, you are digging yourself a very big trench to
fall in -- is it worth it?

Besides, lots of these people don't deserve to be in jail.
Why should they serve time just because they like to get
`high' on marijuana? Especially when someone can drink
alcohol without being arrested... what kind of law is that?
You have to think about what kind of a world you are making
for yourself before you act. How are the police of the
future going to treat the people? How far are you willing
to let the government go to get the drug users? How many of
your own rights will you sacrifice by trying to jail `the
druggies'?

18) I heard that there are over 400 chemicals
in marijuana...
Wellllll...?

True, but so what? There are also over 400 chemicals in
many foods, (including coffee, which contains over 800
chemicals and many rat carcinogens) and we don't see police
arresting people in McDonald's, or giving Driving while
Eating citations. Only THC is very psycho-active; a few
other chemicals also have very small degrees of
psycho-activity. People who use marijuana do not get sick
more, or die earlier, or lose their jobs (except to drug
tests), or have mutant kids... so what's your point?

The fact that there are over 60 unique chemicals in
cannabis, called `cannabinoids,' is something that
scientists find very interesting. Many of these
cannabinoids may have valuable effects as medicine. For
example, `cannabinol' is a cannabinoid which can help people
with insomnia. Doctors think that this chemical is why most
patients prefer to use marijuana rather than pure
Delta-9-THC pills (called dronabinol) -- the cannabinol
takes the edge off being `high' and calms the nerves.
Another cannabinoid, `cannabidiolic acid', is a very
effective anti-biotic, like pennicillin. Many of these
chemicals can be extracted from marijuana without any fancy
laboratory equipment.

19) Doesn't that stuff mess up your immune system
and make
it easier for you catch colds?

Marijuana (Delta-nine-THC) does have an `immunosuppressive
effect.' It acts on certain cells in the liver, called
macrophages, in much the same way that it acts on brain
cells. Instead of stimulating the cells, though, it shuts
them off. This effect is temporary (just like the `high')
and goes away quickly; people who suffer from multiple
sclerosis may actually find this effect useful in fighting
the disease.

Recent research has also found that marijuana metabolites
are left over in the lungs for up to seven months after the
smoking has stopped. While they are there, the immune
system of the lungs may be affected (but the macrophages do
not get ``turned off'' like in the liver.) The effects of
smoking itself are probably worse than the effects of the
THC, and last just as long.

All this said, doctors still have not decided whether
marijuana users are at risk for colds or not. With the
possible exception of bronchitis, there are no numbers which
suggest that marijuana users catch more colds, but... this
did not stop Carlton Turner, a United States Drug Czar, from
saying many times in his public addresses that marijuana
caused AIDS and homosexuality. His claims were so ridiculus
that the Washington Post and Newsweek Magazine made fun of
him, and he was forced to resign.

Today, AIDS patients use marijuana to treat their symptoms
without any aparrent problems. Some studies suggest that
marijuana may actually stimulate certain forms of immunity.
Researchers have tried to show major effects on the healthy
human's immune system, but if marijuana does have any
substantial effects, good or bad, they are either too
subtle or too small to notice.

--------------------------P A R T F O U R
--------------------------

WHY IS IT STILL ILLEGAL?

1) Why is it STILL illegal?:

The official answer: Because you shouldn't use it.
You can't use it because it is illegal, and it is illegal so
you can't use it. You should not use it. It is illegal.
It is illegal so you should not use it.

The manic-depressive answer: It'll never happen. People are
too unorganized/stupid/disempowered. It's just futility.
Try, but don't expect to get anywhere. I won't get my hopes
up.

The paranoid-schizophrenic answer: Don't you SEE?!?!? The
guys at the top have it SEWN!! They own everything.
They'll never let it happen. I shouldn't even be talking to
you, but let me give you some advice!! listen... you
shouldn't mess with THEM, THEY know everything. THEY are
practically psychic, see? And the only way to get it to
happen is to become one of THEM. You'd better watch it, or
THEY will come and take you away -- THEY do that, you know.
It's all a CONSPIRACY!!!

The neurotic answer: Marijuana? Eeek! Don't you know that
stuff is dangerous? People don't make laws for no good
reason, you know! Where did you hear about marijuana?
Wait! Don't tell me, I don't want to know. If anybody even
knew you thought it should be legal -- well -- they'd never
talk to you again! Don't you know that marijuana this...
marijuana that... ... ... ...

THE REAL ANSWER: Marijuana is still illegal because enough
people have not yet stood up together and said:

`` THIS IS STUPID!!

I WANT CANNABIS HEMP LEGAL!!!

FOR PRODUCTS;

FOR MEDICINE;

FOR FOOD;

FOR FUN;

FOR GOODNESS'S SAKE! ISN'T THAT WHAT LIFE'S ALL ABOUT ?!''

Without large-scale grass roots support, marijuana will
never be legal. Every person that stands up for
marijuana/hemp legalization makes us that much stronger, and
our voices that much louder. Believe me, we appreciate all
the support we get. Almost as importantly, it makes it that
much harder for people to say ``that's a stupid idea'' or
``nobody really believes that.''

If you aren't convinced yet, Or if you are having trouble
swallowing any of the answers given, I encourage you to
learn more about the issues. Try the sources listed at the end.

If you're with us, let us know! Let everybody know, unless
it will get you canned or arrested, but most importantly,
keep an eye on what's going on, and try to lend a hand when
you can. Also, know your stuff, so if you have to, you can
convince a friend or loved one that *you* are not nuts --
the rest of the world is.

2) What can I do to bring some sense into our marijuana
laws?

There are many things you can do. Activists are
working right now at all levels to reform marijuana laws.
If you cannot afford to be an activist, there are many ways
you can help -- activists find themselves short of money,
time, and occasionally even friendly company. Get to know a
hemp or marijuana legalization activists in your area, and
just keep up to date on what they are planning. Odds are
you will find something that you can easily do which will
help them out a whole lot. There is a list available called
the Liberty Activist's List which will give you the phone
numbers or address of groups near you. Also, you may call
the National Office of NORML (The National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws) at 1-202-483-5500. The most
important thing you can do on your own, though, is to keep
tabs on your state and local legislators, and let them know
that this is an issue to be taken seriously.

Many activist groups offer `memberships.' These usually
involve a fee for joining the group, and a newsletter that
keeps you up to date on the group's activities. This way
you know when and why to write your legislators, and thought
provoking information which you normally would not get is
delivered to you. If and when you need to, most
importantly, you will be able to contact the group and seek
or give advice.

3a) Where can I get more information?

Many places. One of the best is by using electronic
communications. The Information Superhighway has been a
tremendous leap forwards for our movement, and there is a
lot of information available. Start by sending e-mail to
"({{{readme}}})<
verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu>". There is an
e-mail file-server set up at this address, and just about
anyone with Internet e-mail can use it. The server contains
many files about marijuana, and more importantly directories
and pointers on how to get more information by WWW, GOPHER,
FTP, IRC, and TELNET. For a overview list of these
resources send mail to
"({{{netlinks}}})<verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu>".
If you
have trouble making this work, send a note asking for help
to
"verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu"

A copy of the Liberty Activist's List is also available
through this server, by mailing to
"({{{groups}}})<verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu
>." This will
help you get in touch with activists near you. If you are
interested, there is an excellent mailing list devoted to
Drug War issues. It is called DRCnet and you may send mail
to "borden@netcom.com " for information
on becoming involved.

3b) Umm, I'm computer illiterate, so that just
went way over
my head. Are there any good books I could go get instead?

Here is a list of some of the must-read books and
articles about marijuana and legalization. Check the
source section of this FAQ for more information about
these and other sources.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

(hemp can be grown legally)

``Hemp, Life-line to the Future'' by Chris Conrad pub data pending.

John Birrenbach's legal hemp FAQ pub. Institute for Hemp 1993.

(number one cash crop)

``Drugs, Crime and the Justice System'' pub. United States Government
Printing Office Washington, DC. December, 1992.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

``The Manufacture of Paper from Hemp Hurds'' by Jason L. Merril in
``USDA Bulletin/Yearbook of the United States Department of
Agriculture'' Iss. 404 pp. 7-25. pub. United States Department of
Agriculture

4b) Why can't we just keep using trees?

``The Production and Handling of Hemp Hurds'' by Lyster H. Dewey in
"USDA Bulletin" Iss. 404 pp. 1-6. pub. United States Department of
Agriculture.

``Marijuana, The Forbidden Medicine'' by Lester Grinspoon M.D. and
James B. Bakalar pub. Yale University Press New Haven, 1993.

7) What other uses for hemp are there?

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

Note: 93/94 edition of the Emperor only.

WELL WHY AREN'T WE USING HEMP, THEN?

1) How and why was hemp made illegal?

``Drugs and minority oppression'' by John Helmer pub. Seabury Press
New York, 1975.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

2) OK, so what the heck does all this other stuff...

``The Manufacture of Paper from Hemp Hurds'' by Jason L. Merril in
``USDA Bulletin/Yearbook of the United States Department of
Agriculture'' Iss. 404 pp. 7-25. pub. United States Department of
Agriculture

``New Billion-Dollar Crop'' in ``Popular Mechanics'' February, 1938.

``Flax and Hemp From the Seed to the Loom '' by George A. Lower in
``Mechanical Engineering'' February, 1937.

3) Now wait, just hold on. You expect me to believe....

``Hemp, Life-line to the Future'' by Chris Conrad pub data pending.

``The Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of
the Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save
the World'' by Jack Herer pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

``In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition: Opinion and
Recommended Ruling, Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision
of Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young '' by Hon. Francis L.
Young September, 1988.

``The Influence of Anesthesia, Pregnancy, and Sex on the Plasma
Disposition of Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol and
11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol in the Rhesus Monkey''
by Merle G. Paule, John R. Bailey, William Slikker Jr. in ``'' pp.
315-320. ed. pub.

``Marihuana A Signal of Misunderstanding '' pub. U.S. Government
Printing Office Washington, 1972.

``The Marijuana Problem in the City of New York'' (Mayor Laguardia's
Commission on Marijuana. The text of the decision can be found in a
three volume set entitled ``The Marijuana Papers'') more pub. data
pending.

``Official Corruption Carton Turner'' by Jack HererJack Herer in ``The
Emperor Wears No Clothes The Authoritative Historical Record of the
Cannabis Plant, Marijuana Prohibition, & How Hemp Can Still Save the
World'' pub. Queen of Clubs HEMP Publishing, 1993.

-----------------------P A R T S I X
-----------------------

ABOUT THE ALT.HEMP FAQ

This section is for people who want to know more about the
FAQ itself, and for those who want to be a part of
maintaining and distributing this document. First we will
start with a Version History of the alt.hemp FAQ:

--------------------------------

Versions 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 -- These are incomplete versions
which were used to test the waters and draw discussion.
Please replace them with a more current version if you run
across them anywhere.

Version 0.3LaTeX -- So far, this is the only typeset version
of the FAQ.

Version 1.0 -- This is the first completed version of the
FAQ.

Version 1.0m -- This is the first completed mini-FAQ for
alt.hemp. It is meant for small BBS's and FIDONET where
file sizes must be small.

-----------------------------------

Future Versions:

The text of the FAQ is now pretty much stable. New
questions may be added and any mistakes corrected. Work on
the text will concentrate on fleshing out the resource and
sources section, providing more cites, especially pointers
to on-line textfiles and information.

Work has started on a German hemp FAQ, and true patriots of
other countries are encouraged to translate and/or rewrite
the FAQ and to research marijuana prohibition's history in
their own countries. Future versions supporting various
forms of hypertext are in the works, as well as print-ready
and FAX-ready formats. There is a mailing list for
coordination of this and other activities. Please contactverdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu
if you have questions,
suggestions, comments, requests, or offers of help. We
are looking for people with either lots of spare time, or
knowlege of SGML, LaTeX, HTML, MIME, as well as other
hypertext or word-processing software.